We will allow that Neil Simon can write one-liners better than most.
And he can fashion a clever play; sometimes a powerful one.
While "Chapter Two," his 1977 play about his relationship with actress Marsha Mason shortly after his first wife died, has some mighty funny lines in the first act, it's a play that doesn't hold up well. This is not powerful theater.
Oh, Live Theatre Workshop's production, directed with a clip-along pace by Douglas Mitchell, is performed well. And it has some very funny moments.
But it is so thick with psychobabble, so self-conscious, so tiresome in its this-relationship-will-work/no-it-won't hysteria that it's a wonder it's performed much at all anymore.
OK, we got that out of our system. Now on to the Live Theatre Workshop production.
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Carrie Hill and Eric Anson play the couple in love, Jennie and George — fashioned after Mason and Simon.
There wasn't much electricity between the two, which made the whirlwind romance seem implausible. Nevertheless, they both held their own. Hill, especially, injected flirtatious life into her character.
It's the secondary couple in this play, Leo (Brian Wees) and Faye (Kristi Loera), who have some of the funniest lines and snappiest dialogue — and Wees and Loera revel in them.
The story is this: George, a recent widower, is just back from Europe, where he revisited every place he and his late wife once went. He's got a well-meaning brother (Wees) who wants to fix him up, but George is barely interested in love. Or life, for that matter.
Meanwhile, Jennie has just gotten a divorce. She's not too interested in a love life, either.
Naturally, the two get together, fall madly in love and get married, all in about two weeks time.
Which, of course, leads to serious wedding night doubts. At least on George's part.
The romance mirrors Simon's with Mason — they met in 1973 while she was working on one of his plays, and they married three weeks later. They divorced 10 years after that, which doesn't give us much hope for the couple in "Chapter Two."
This Live Theatre Workshop production shines at times, and there are plenty of laughs. But this Simon play is one of the weakest in the impressive oeuvre of one of the world's most successful playwrights.
Review
"Chapter Two"
• By: Neil Simon.
• Director: Douglas Mitchell.
• Presented by: Live Theatre Workshop.
• When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays, through July 22.
• Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway.
• Tickets: $17, with discounts available.
• More information: 327-4242.
